Reducing Stomach Muscle, Training Program for GF

Bigger Stronger Leaner Powerful Women
1

My girlfriend started going to the gym over summer and has become very lean. However, I noticed that her abdominal and oblique muscles had become very well developed to the point in which they protrude out quite a bit and have added mass onto her waist. I discovered she had been doing a lot of abdominal exercises and crunches in those ridiculous legs, bums and tums classes (where apparently the personal trainers want to make all girls look like rectangles).

I intervened and told her to stop doing endless crunches and got her on a starting strength esque program.However, what I really want to know is, is there anyway of reducing abdominal muscle size? Now that she has stopped the endless crunches, will they shrink?

Or will any minor stimulation of them keep them at the same size? Her goal is to have a sexy hourglass physique, so the exercises I put her on should help with that but I was wondering if maybe there would be alternative and better ways of doing it. This is her program (I did 5x5 because I thought 3x5 would mean heavier weights and therefore more core stimulation which we don’t want).

A:
Squats 5x5
Bench Press 5x5
Deadlift 1x5
Dips 3x failure

B:
Squats 5x5
Overhead Press 5x5
Chin ups 3x failure

I have noticed that she puts on muscle mass very quickly. I was wondering if maybe the full body exercises might be activating her abs and obliques too much, when we want to shrink them. Should we potentially get rid of the deadlifts and chin ups (as chin ups activate abs the most of all exercises according to a tnation article) and make the overhead press seated to remove the core activation? Potentially change to 20 rep squats so that the weight is even lower (to reduce core activation) but with the same amount of hypertrophy? Any advice people can give to reduce her waist size?

Also because the other aspect is to build the hourglass physique are there any good exercises to build that, that I am missing?

Thanks

2

Oh boy.

Chad Waterbury was given a very hard time when the following article came out, and I imagine you’re going to receive similar treatment now, but I thought I would pass along the link anyway, because it seems to be on point with what you’re looking for.

Best of luck in your training goals and those of your girlfriend.

3

Thanks for the reply. I’ve read the article before and it did pique my interest and corroborate my thoughts on the subject. Except the training program seems quite lacklustre and not likely to do much. I don’t think the article goes into enough depth on the subject as I would like and I cannot find anything that talks about it more. I’m really looking for people to expound all the ideas, theories and practicalities they know about the subject.

4

Get her a Squeem?? Seems to work for the bikini girls. (Seriously though, that’s dumb. Don’t do that.)

This training program…is that all she’s doing? I don’t understand why you’ve structured it that way at all.

Training a muscle will make it larger. Not training it will likely eventually lead to atrophy. After skimming the article, I’m not really sure what you feel needs to be discussed in greater depth. You can alter your waist size to a degree through fat and muscle gain or loss, but you are, to some degree, stuck with what you’ve got.

Developing the shoulders/upper back and glutes will help create the illusion of a smaller waist and an x-frame or hourglass shape. If shape was my main comcern, I’d focus on those areas.

5

[quote]buckeye girl wrote:
Get her a Squeem?? Seems to work for the bikini girls. (Seriously though, that’s dumb. Don’t do that.)

This training program…is that all she’s doing? I don’t understand why you’ve structured it that way at all.

Training a muscle will make it larger. Not training it will likely eventually lead to atrophy. After skimming the article, I’m not really sure what you feel needs to be discussed in greater depth. You can alter your waist size to a degree through fat and muscle gain or loss, but you are, to some degree, stuck with what you’ve got.

Developing the shoulders/upper back and glutes will help create the illusion of a smaller waist and an x-frame or hourglass shape. If shape was my main comcern, I’d focus on those areas. [/quote]

That is the weight training program. She also does classes and other exercise to supplement. The basis of the structure is along the lines of starting strength and stronglifts 5x5.

What I’m trying to figure out is that if you are purely trying to build an hourglass figure, then what are the best exercises to do so for a girl who puts on muscle quickly and what exercises are good to avoid in order not to stimulate abs and obliques growth and to let them atrophy and shrink.

6

Waylander,

I’ve thought quite a bit about this myself. Goals do matter. I started lifting for strength and just doing all the compound lifts, and was really happy with the results over the first couple of years. BUT I lift mainly for physique goals these days and I’ve pulled back a bit.

Height, weight, body type, where you put your fat, all that makes a difference in terms of aesthetics. I’m focused on delts and glutes right now. Those are two muscle groups that I can hypertrophy all I can and they will emphasize an hourglass shape. I think that’s true for most women, unless she’s naturally an inverted triangle with swimmer’s shoulders, them more delts usually look great. :slight_smile: I’m training shoulders twice a week right now. Lots of push pressing, and lots of heavy partial laterals (sets of 25), and reverse flys on the cable cross machine, front raises holding a 25 pound plate, among other delt complexes. As Buckeye mentioned, lats can add to an hourglass look as well, depending on your GF’s preference.

For abs, I do 1 minute planks x 5 everyday, and take a pilates class once a week, but I don’t directly train abs otherwise. As a result, even when I’m very lean at 106, I don’t have a visible 6 pack, just some horizontal lines on my abs. It’s a trade off, but since I’m not competing, I’d rather keep my smaller waist and not thicken my abs with lots of volume and weighted ab exercises. That’s just a personal preference, given my height (I’m not quite 5’2"). I’m not wide enough at the hip or bust to handle a thicker middle. I might feel different if I were taller. More ab thickness would just make me look straight up and down. And though I admire some of the more developed physiques, I prefer more of a bikini to small figure look on myself. Look at many of the bikini competitors. You’ll see a softer look in the midsection on most.

My quads are big enough. I worked hard on my sweep in 2012, so I’m maintaining them but not trying to get them bigger right now. I never train calves because mine are naturally large. Try not to activate traps any more than I have to, but that’s very hard to do.

You get the idea. If you are training mostly to have a pretty hourglass figure and look firm, you do have to look at what your goals are, and where you WANT muscle, even if you’re a woman. There are exceptions. I train with a very small boned woman who is just tiny, fast metabolism, and has a hard time putting on any weight at all. She’s not making much progress, despite lifting “like a dude”.

Hope this helps,
Puff

Edited

7

So after much research, experimentation and trial and error this is the program I have designed for the GF which is creating very good results. Here it is if anyone is interested:

Barbell Glute Bridge: 2x20
Barbell Hip Thrust: 3x8 (100%), 3x6 (100%), 1x8 (~80%), 1x15 (~50%), 1x20 (~20%)
Butterfly Machine with chair set to highest, or Dips: 3x20
Hip Abductor Machine: 1x8 (100%), 1x12 (~80%) 1x20 (~50%)
Lateral Pull Downs: 3x3
Cable Hip Abduction (for each leg): 1x8 (100%), 1x12 (~80%), 1x20 (~50%)
Increase weights each session

Bodyweight Squat: 3x20
20-30 mins of cardio

Her waist has seen a decrease of 2 inches, mainly from muscle. And her hips and bust have increased by 2 inches, now giving a 12 inch difference in hip to waist and bust. I completely removed any exercise that targets the abs and obliques, so no Barbell squats or deadlifts, however body weight squats are fine. The hip thrusts and glute bridges are the best thing ever for putting on glute muscle. And the hip abduction exercises put more muscle on the sides of the hips to create a curvier look from the front.

Her back is well developed so I have opted for 3x3 lateral pull downs to just maintain the muscle strength without hypertrophy and to counter the chest exercises so the back doesnt become hunched. As for the bust, I hypothesise that you can make the breasts appear bigger by enlargening the lower and inner parts of the pectorals underneath, which is why I chose Dips and butterfly machine as Dips are decline to focus the lower parts of the pectoral muscle(going from EMG studies), whilst the butterfly machine focuses the inner part to hypothetically create more cleavage. Her arms are also well developed so these exercises are done with a limited ROM to not target the arms.